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Cinco de Mayo is not the Mexican Independence Day, like many people think -- that would be September 16. Actually Cinco de Mayo is a minor holiday in Mexico, which celebrates a victory over the French at the Battle Of Puebla.

So why is it such a huge event in the U.S.?

Marketing of course.

The holiday gained popularity in the 1950's and 1960's because of The Good Neighbor policy, an effort to build a better relationship between Mexico and America, according to National Geographic.

But it really took off when beer companies got involved.

In the early 1980s, Anheuser-Busch and Miller Company created Hispanic Marketing departments and began sponsoring Cinco de Mayo celebrations, according to Norman K. Denzin's Studies In Symbolic Interaction. In 1989 a party sponsored by Anheurser-Busch turned into a drunken riot, and latino activists accused the company of "pushing a legalized drug upon our community."

Decades later the party remains a key means of marketing to the hispanic beer market. In 2009 beer companies spent $171-million on Spanish language advertising.

The Bleachers

Their going to go back even if we have to drag them out of their homes in the middle of the night ...

you STFU ... we pay for their medical costs , the costs to raise their kids ... as far as rent goes they live 10 to a home ... sales tax ? give me a break , they make almost nothing so they buy almost nothing ...

their nothing but a drag on this economy and their holding down jobs that americans could be working ...

you think i care that the slum lords will go broke ? i LIVE in arizona and we are sick to death of them and the crime they bring ...

DON'T GET IN OUR WAY

How Beer Companies Turned A Minor Holiday Into America's Favorite Mexican Drinking Day